Somewhere around 2:17 a.m., when the radiator starts clanging and the ceiling shadows develop opinions, Toronto’s TRAITRS drops Dream Drowning like a bucket of cold water over your head. You jolt upright. Good. You were getting too comfortable.
This is the last single before the release of their long-awaited new album, Possessor, and it plays like a curtain call delivered with a clenched jaw. The drums thud with that stern, marching insistence — heart as hammer — while the synths smear across the room like fog from a faulty machine in a basement club that smells faintly of clove cigarettes and spilled beer. Sean-Patrick Nolan’s sequencing keeps everything taut, the drum machines snapping tight against glassy synth lines that coil and release with precision.
Over it all, Shawn Tucker’s voice soars and surveys — passionate, poised, and edged with ache — recalling the romantic urgency of The Cure at their most open-veined, with lateral flashes of “Charlotte Sometimes” in the windswept lift of his delivery and that searching, half-lit ache. Tucker sounds less like a narrator and more like a man suspended inside the dream itself, reporting live from the undertow rather than describing it from shore. In that suspended state, sleep becomes suspect; memory begins to mutate; and the bed yawns open like a trapdoor.
Dream Drowning sits, as the band describes it, “at the emotional core of the record — restrained, atmospheric, and deliberately unresolved.” It deals in repetition: the daily loop, the déjà vu that feels less mystical and more municipal. Wake up. Scroll. Work. Repeat. The horror isn’t theatrical; it’s the dull flicker of fluorescent. There’s a sense of being “standing on the outside edge of the world looking in,” as Tucker puts it — never quite inside the dream, never fully awake either.
For Tucker, the song cuts close. “In my experience I’ve never remembered my dreams,” he explains. “Instead, I’m left navigating other people’s experiences, stories and trying to understand how it feels to dream.” In Dream Drowning, that absence becomes part of the nightmare itself: “It’s the horrors of my life set on an endless loop, reoccurring over and over again.” The refrain circles like a street you swear you’ve already walked down. The repetition isn’t hypnotic — it’s existential.
Written during what the duo describes as a period of “profound life changes and depression,” Possessor approaches new wave as emotional language rather than aesthetic exercise. Recorded at Toronto’s Wychwood Studios with Josh Korody — in between relentless touring schedules — the album prioritises mood and lyric clarity over spectacle. The bassline prowls. The guitars cut clean and quick. Matt Colton’s mastering gives the record a sleek steel sheen, compressing nothing that doesn’t deserve it.
The album was shaped during bleak winter months, staring out at storms and confronting mortality, alienation, and the temporary nature of existence head-on. It asks difficult questions about what anything means when we’re gone, about watching everything erode and wondering if any of it mattered. “There’s a lot of anger, beauty, and sadness on the album,” the band reflects. “I want to feel that someone is holding you when you’re cold, sad and alone in the dark.” It’s therapy by admission — Tucker calls it the most personal record he’s ever written.
And if Dream Drowning is the entry point, it’s a stark one. Tucker admits, almost offhandedly, about his dreaming, and death, “To be honest, I prefer not to remember — it’s how I think my death will be… black.”
Listen to Dream Drowning below and stream it elsewhere here.
TRAITRS have been at this for over a decade — from bedroom tapes to festival stages across continents — and the experience shows. The hooks land with intent. The frame is broader, the edges cleaner. And if Dream Drowning is the final glimpse before Possessor, take it as a warning flare: sleep as a battleground, routine as ritual, and the subconscious as a weight pressing against your ribs in the dark.
Put the album on late. Let it rattle around the room. If you wake up feeling slightly displaced from your own life, well… that may be the point.
Possessor releases March 13, 2026.
Order the album here
To celebrate the release of Possessor, TRAITRS will take the record across two continents in 2026, beginning with a spring European run before returning home for an extensive North American tour. The EU/UK dates now launch in Dublin on 20 March and continue through Germany, Switzerland, and festival appearances in June and July, including Castle Party in Poland. The North American leg kicks off on home turf in Toronto on 13 March and culminates in Ottawa on 16 May.
TRAITRS — Possessor North American Tour:
13 March — Toronto, ON — Lee’s Palace
14 March — Montreal, QC — Bar Le Ritz
14 April — West Palm Beach, FL — Respectable Street (w/ She Past Away)
15 April — Tampa, FL — The Orpheum (w/ She Past Away)
16 April — Dallas, TX — Ferris Wheelers (w/ She Past Away)
17 April — San Antonio, TX — Paper Tiger (w/ She Past Away)
21 April — Seattle, WA — The Crocodile (w/ Lebanon Hanover)
22 April — Portland, OR — Crystal Ballroom (w/ Lebanon Hanover)
24 April — Salt Lake City, UT — Metro Music Hall (w/ Lebanon Hanover)
26 April — Los Angeles, CA — The Roxy
29 April — Las Vegas, NV — Swan Dive (w/ Lebanon Hanover)
30 April — Phoenix, AZ — The Marquee Theater (w/ Lebanon Hanover)
1 May — Denver, CO — TBA
5 May — Chicago, IL — Sleeping Village
6 May — Indianapolis, IN — Spellbound Indy
7 May — Detroit, MI — Small’s
8 May — Columbus, OH — Ace of Cups (w/ Ultra Sunn)
9 May — Pittsburgh, PA — Spirit (w/ Ultra Sunn)
11 May — Richmond, VA — Fallout
12 May — Philadelphia, PA — Johnny Brenda’s
13 May — Brooklyn, NY — Elsewhere
14 May — Boston, MA — Middle East (Upstairs)
16 May — Ottawa, ON — House of Targ
Possessor EU, UK, and Ireland Tour:
5 February 2026 — Denmark — Copenhagen — Rust
7 February 2026 — Germany — Braunschweig — Stereowerk
8 February 2026 — Netherlands — Grauzone Festival
20 March 2026 — Ireland — Dublin — Whelan’s
21 March 2026 — UK — Morecambe — Corrosion Fest 2026
22 March 2026 — UK — London — 229 Club
24 March 2026 — France — Toulouse — Dada
26 March 2026 — Germany — Bremen — Lila Eule
27 March 2026 — Germany — Hamburg — Markthalle (LH Support)
28 March 2026 — Germany — Leipzig — Felsenkeller (LH Support)
29 March 2026 — Germany — Oberhausen — Kulttempel
31 March 2026 — Germany — Karlsruhe — Die Stadtmitte
1 April 2026 — Germany — Göttingen — Exil
3 April 2026 — Switzerland — Zürich — Xtra Schwarze Ball 2026
7 April 2026 — Germany — Jena — Rosenkeller
8 April 2026 — Germany — Hannover — Lux
9 April 2026 — Germany — Frankfurt — Nachtleben
10 April 2026 — Germany — Übach-Palenberg — Rockfabrik
11 April 2026 — Germany — Bielefeld — Movie
19 June 2026 — Germany — Meschede — Live Am See 2026
27 June 2026 — Belgium — Ieper — Pekkerfeesten 2026
16–19 July 2026 — Poland — Bolków — Castle Party
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